Protests across the Arab world against killing of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah
People took to the streets Saturday night across the Arab world denouncing Israel’s killing of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah in a massive air raid which levelled an entire block south of Beirut on Friday.
Hezbollah confirmed their leader’s death after the Israeli military said he had been killed in an airstrike.
In Ramallah in the occupied West Bank, hundreds of Palestinians marched through the city in support of Gaza and Lebanon, where an Israeli offensive is being waged, raising flags and pictures of Nasrallah.
The West Bank itself has seen a spike in Israeli military raids and Israeli settler attacks since the Gaza war began nearly a year ago, and hundreds have been killed in the territory.
Participants in the march vowed to continue with the resistance against Israel and avenge the killings of Nasrallah and slain Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh, stressing "Palestine’s message is loyalty to the resistance in Lebanon."
Tayseer al-Zubri, a member of a group called the Palestinian Popular Conference told The New Arab's sister site Al-Araby Al-Jadeed that the protesters were there to "declare their solidarity with the Lebanese people and unity in the Palestinian-Lebanese struggle".
Hundreds of people also protested near the Israeli embassy in the Jordanian capital Amman on Saturday evening.
People carried pictures of Nasrallah and demanded "revenge for his blood and the blood of the martyrs."
Tensions have simmered between Jordan and Israel , which have shared ties since the 1990s, ever since Israel's indiscriminate war on Gaza began last October.
In the Moroccan capital Rabat, people gathered in front of the parliament building to also condemn Nasrallah’s assassination, chanting slogans like "the resistance will not die" and "Nasrallah, rest, we will continue the struggle".
Morocco normalised ties with Israel in 2020, but many Moroccans have come out in protest since the Gaza war began to call for the severing of ties.
Hassan Nasrallah gained a lot of popularity throughout the Arab world after they forced Israel to withdraw from Lebanon in 2000 and after a 2006 war with Israel, in which they showed they could confront Israel's powerful military despite limited capabilities.
But most of this popularity was lost when Hezbollah intervened in the Syrian conflict on the side of President Bashar al-Assad, helping him to violently crush a pro-democracy uprising in his country which began in March 2011.